Hi and welcome to another week,

Loved my training last week.  We got to do a heap of rowing which I know is good for my conditioning and that always makes me happy.  The 7-minute class was a ripper and the return of hand-weight punching – particularly the hand-weight punching, lat raises, arm circles combo – reminded me that there are muscle fibres hidden DEEP in my shoulders.

I wanted to talk a little bit this week about the WHY behind our current challenge (‘In the ZONE’).  I have had a bit of feedback that some people love the discipline of the food challenges BUT think this one is just a bit too daunting because it means that they have to actually weigh and measure what they eat.  After all, “I got great results when I cut out sugar for 28-Days Later back in February – can’t we just do that again”?

Well, the simple answer is that I guess we could have – and to be honest, you could do that yourself at ANY time!  But the longer answer is that the challenges are supposed to be about a little bit more than helping you drop 3kg’s in a month.  The idea is that the challenges will help you make small changes to life long habits that will help you for the long term…and to do that, we need to target a slightly different ‘element’ each time we do a challenge.  The last one was all about added sugars/sweeteners, this one is all about food balance and food quantity.

With regard to habits – the ones all of us have – I like to think of them in this way.  Our lives are all massive cruise liners that are traversing the globe – following the exact same course over and over again.  This course is our habits and changing them is HARD.  The captain of our ship (our brain!) can make small adjustments to the course of the ship – but because the ship is SOOOO big, it is really, really hard to change the course it is on.  This doesn’t mean that it can’t be done – it can – but it has to be done a little bit at a time.

When I align this model to our gym challenges, you will see that with regards to the training elements we go down a pretty similar path over and over again.  We set a minimum number of classes and then add in some extra elements – usually it is a little bit of strength training, a little bit of cardio training AND some rehab.  In the current challenge, the only extra is the ‘REHAB’ element (because it is the thing I see most neglected post-training).  In any case, in our challenges we try to get the ship to follow a course which involves REGULAR training that has a general focus (group training) PLUS adds some ‘extra elements’ that enable you to work on your weaknesses.  The idea being of course that if we can ‘teach’ you to take the time to do a ‘little bit extra’ every week, then you will progress a LOT quicker – 10 minutes extra every session works out to more than 2 hours extra every month (based on 4-sessions per week)…and if that was dedicated to strength work (for example), at the end of the month you would have gotten a LOT stronger.  But this only works if you can TURN THE SHIP.

With the food, we have traditionally focussed on food exclusion – usually alcohol, sugar/sweeteners and bread.  The plan here of course is to have you eating real, whole food every day (meat, fish, fruit, veggies, nuts and seeds) and reap the benefits (more energy, improved body composition) from doing so.  We also set up regular ‘free eating’ days/meals so that you get to enjoy those things you ‘love’ occasionally whilst not making them part of your day to day menu.   The idea here is that you get to eat a little bit of everything – but not everything should be eaten ‘every day’.

This challenge hopes to build on all of this food knowledge from previous challenges – and add the lesson of BALANCE.  This challenge isn’t just about eating the right food – it is about building on the knowledge we have about WHAT to eat and learning to EAT the RIGHT AMOUNT of food.  Is that a pain?  Well, to start with, sure – it is always hard to TURN THE SHIP.  But if you weigh and measure what you are eating for a couple of weeks, then you will quickly begin to understand HOW much food you should be eating.  And you might be surprised – it might be more than you eat today.  It might be less than you eat today.  More likely, it is about the same but the ‘balance’ between how much meat you eat and how many veggies you eat will swing a bit more towards the veggies side…Importantly though, once you are SURE how much you are eating, you can quite easily ‘make adjustments’ to the course you have set in order to give yourself a bit more energy (why am I so tired in the afternoons) or maybe drop a kilo or two if you notice your body composition is changing for the worse.

This challenge will really help you get that last step right – for everyone who has ever told me “I just think I eat too much” then this will help you answer that question…it will help teach you how much is enough based on your body size.

Good luck!

See you in the gym,

Michael.

Gym Update #1 – Timetable Changes

We have a new group training schedule up for the first time in nearly 18-months.  The most notable change is that we have abandoned our ‘One Minute Rounds’ on Thursday and made our Thursday look a little more like every other day in the gym.  One minute rounds will not be gone forever – we will roll them out every 6-weeks or so – but they are finished in terms of having a day dedicated to that style of class.  I have received a bit of feedback that these are our best classes / peoples favourite classes but equally people have been complaining that they are ‘sick of them’…and session attendance on Thursday’s has been well down for nearly 6-months now so I guess people have voted with their feet.

The timetable also features a couple of new Body Work class times – 5am and 4pm on Thursday and a new ‘No Rules’ session at 7pm on Thursday.  I think that is about it.

You can grab a new timetable card from reception or check it out online here:

https://round1fitness.com.au/time-table

Gym Update #2 – June Challenge – ‘In the ZONE’ – Off and Running

Good luck to everyone who is getting ‘In the ZONE’.  As I have said over the last couple of weeks, it is our most involved challenge yet purely because of the level of effort/commitment it takes to get your food portions RIGHT.  It is also probably the BEST way to get your Body Composition right – because you KNOW how much you are eating (and you KNOW it is balanced) it becomes a pretty simple task to adjust your quantities up/down to get the results you want.  It is not going to be easy, but it WILL be worth it.

If you are keen to have a go, the registration link is here:  Register for In the ZONE

Gym Update #3 – Beach Bodies 3-month Program – First Week is GO.

For those people registered for Beach Bodies, so far you should have received:

–       Max Weights Table (you should have updated this as best as you can).

–       Basic Diet Plan

–       Training Log

–       Week 1 of the programming.  The programming will be released each Sunday throughout the program.

As you will have seen, there are SIX (6) days per week of programming with Wednesday and Saturday also being slight ‘deload’ days in terms of strength training and Sunday scheduled as a day off.  You can obviously slide that day off around as you need – but remember, whatever you do on Sunday has the potential to impact the training for Monday so be SMART.

If you have seen what the Beach Bodies crew are doing and are keen to have a go at the program, the registration link is here:  Register for BEACH BODIES

Gym Update #4 – Barbell Racks is Up

The new barbell rack is up on the wall in the TANKS area – so all of those new barbells are finally up off the ground.  Please take every effort to look after this equipment guys – the bars themselves are each worth more than $500 – and whilst I am happy for you to ‘drop’ the bars/bumper plates, dropping them from shoulder height is just not cool…all those breaking and splitting bumper plates cost real money to replace…look after the gear in your gym.

Gym Update #5 – New Reception Area is Coming soon

We have been doing a fair bit of work lately on revising the Round 1 ‘reception area’ and the plans are pretty close to finalised – just awaiting final quotes and it will be good to go.  The basic premise is making getting ‘in’ to the gym a lot simpler – avoiding the bank up of ‘traffic’ at the front door – and making it easy for members to get their workout started.

It should be amazing when it is all done – there will most likely be a ‘little bit’ of an interruption to normal proceedings whilst the cabinetry is being installed but here’s hoping for smooth sailing.

Footy Tipping Results for Round 9

A 3-way tie for victory in Round 9 – Amanda D, someone who I think is Dave MacFarlane and the ubiquitous ‘Rach’ who might need to add some more info to her username!  Upsets were few and far between but somehow I could still only manage to get SIX right!

The girls continue to crush the boys on the leaderboard, with Dani Elsum and Michelle Howley one point clear of Shelby P and Christine P…with Justin V also in that group one back from the leaders.

Dream Team Results for Round 9

A good week for many in Dream Team this week, with a number of scores topping the 2000 mark.  Leading the way were Lloyd (Gym Gods) on 2097, Rocco (Roccos Ropes) on 2091 and Justin (Juddy’s All Stars) on 2073.  The bye rounds are coming up in TWO WEEKS so if you haven’t done some planning around HOW you will keep a team on the field through the 3-weeks of byes, I would suggest you do that this week!  Teams with byes in Round 11 are Adelaide, Richmond, Brisbane, Bulldogs, Carlton and Hawthorn…Dream Team will keep rolling and there are NO EXTRA TRADES so maybe make a couple of changes THIS WEEK with those byes in mind.

Link of the week

I linked to this one last week but just can’t let it drop.  Awesome article:

http://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/aging-is-bs-the-myth-of-missed-opportunities